It really is a tale of two cities. There is a large, very modern business area ( with some high end residential towers) and the quaint colonial town of Olinda - just six miles from downtown. There are 22 churches in Recife with most of them being several hundred years old.
We toured Olinda first, once we got by the 5,000 participants bike race! Quite a traffic jam!
Olinda is a very picturesque old colonial town, with lots of beautiful old churches and colonial architecture buildings all painted in their pink, purple, green hues-- a veritable collage of colors! It was so hot, I must confess we limited our walking and did more viewing in the air conditioned van! Our guide was very nice, but his English skills were not quite as good as some of our other guides so there was a little less talking and minimum historical facts presented. Still, all in all, a fun tour with some great photo stops!
Sugar cane and tourism seem to be the biggest industries. However, I'm not sure we got the whole story. The modern part of Recife is in a building boom -- it is slightly similar to all the building boom we saw in Dubai and most are very modern high rises ! What has caused this "boom" I'm not sure. Our guide did tell us there was another MAJOR commercial shipping port outside of town (not where we are docked) that employs 300,000 people. Maybe that explains it, but I'm not totally convinced.
We drove by the beach and was it PACKED! It's a Sunday afternoon and there is only one beach and that's where everyone goes! However, few people are in the water -- and none outside the nearby reef because they have a shark problem. Several people have been attacked and it has pretty much shut down all of the surfers because it is so dangerous.
I am posting photos of Olinda ( the colonial, Unesco World Heritage Site) and of the city of Recife.. There are some photos of Carnival costumes and of an old prison that has been converted to a market.
We saw several hundred men in red jumpsuits cleaning up parts of the city.. The guide tells us it's because the Mayor is running for re-election and so he is trying to clean up the city to win votes!
Tomorrow we have a half day in Natal. I will try and post from there.
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